I am not sure why I am choosing this theme to start writing again. Perhaps it is because I often feel divided and it keeps me from working, or doing what I love or even being the best version of myself. When I last wrote here, I said that my soul felt exhausted, and it really, really was.

This blog, art, my dissertation are all important to me, but then I feel as though I were becoming someone else. Sometimes, it is an empty, broken shell, and sometimes it is a soft body full of holes and a head that hears and sees and feels monsters all around it, or it can be shouts and eyes and obsessive thoughts… Suddenly I am not there anymore; I am only a stranger or a visitor in my own body. It is scary, but then again, it really isn’t as bad as it could be. And I can’t say if I’ll make it this time either, but I will try…

I find myself thinking that I repeat the same words over and over again, as if I were rehearsing for the day when the thoughts I have, the words I speak and the actions I perform coincide. Anxiety builds up inside my chest; it makes my heart pound and my vision go blurry.

I have not worked on my PhD for two weeks and I have barely worked on the classes I teach. I have not drawn, written or even read – and I wonder: where have these weeks gone? What have I been doing all this time? Last month, on the 20th of October, I was at a seminar I had organized for grad students, and now I am in my room composing this blog post, but I am not sure what happened in between.

It is scary. I feel stuck – stuck on repeat, stuck on nothing. I tell myself that I could flee – that is the escapist solution and it would not solve anything though. I am so scared that I will not make it and that I will ruin everything I have built…

That is yet another repetition.

Another combination of words I have already used.

Where do I go from now? I must fight, but I am tired of fighting. I must go on, but my soul seems exhausted. There is hope… There’s always hope. I just need to catch it.

Since I’ve been teaching I’ve noticed that a lot of my students love drawing, writing or painting. This aspect makes me feel really interested in them and I’d like to share our common interest on my blog. Actually, I’ve got one student who is fond of drawing and painting, she is an artist at heart […]

I am just starting the second year of my PhD and last Thursday was the first appointment of the year with my advisor. Before then, I was asked to write a summary of the research I had done during the first year so it could be reviewed by a research committee. I can gladly say that both the committee and my advisor were satisfied with my work and thought everything I had done so far was convincing and sensitive. They also concurred in saying that it was very clear and explained carefully… And that’s where I get to the title of this post.

Because inside my head, everything looks quite the opposite. There’s a chaos of thoughts and doubts hiding behind the splendour of the summary that I gave to the professors. There is something about writing a dissertation that creates messes and confusions inside your brain. Sometimes, it feels as though I were facing a large ball of wool that I didn’t know how to disentangle. I have the intuition, deep down, that this ball, once it is unravelled, will be the long, beautiful thread which will hold the thesis together, but now, it just lies there twisted on my brain-floor.

And I do have most of the elements I need to write and make an outline, but all of the ideas just keep floating inside my brain, and they are unwilling to come together. It scares me… All of these doubts… Teachers say it’s natural and healthy. Keats even believed the ability to remain in doubts and uncertainties was key to writing poetry and to easing the burden of being unable to understand everything about life. I agree with that… I really do, but what happens when positive, philosophical doubt turns into questions about whether or not you are capable ?

I suppose you have to push ahead. You have to take a step back and reflect on what you’ve done so far and how you can go on. You have to let the fog scatter and clear. And you have to write, even without a plan or a specific goal, just to see where the ideas take you. And hopefully one day, it will all make sense. So if there’s any piece of advice I can give myself, and anyone else, it is just that: DON’T GIVE UP !

It has almost been two years now since I wrote the very first article in this blog, and I was very proud of it at first. I would post almost every week – there was something exhilarating about it! But I have been stuck… Looking over the posts, I could see no direction. Something was simply missing… Perhaps it was my rambling too much, or perhaps there was element of repetition… Maybe it was the long pauses in-between posts… I can’t really tell what it was, but it definitely was there – Just blots of ink and erratic strokes…

Confusion – Watercolour and Ink on Paper

So I thought to myself: “Do you want to give up the blog? Do you want to start a brand new one?” The answer to both questions was a definite “NO”, but I did want to change it.

I turned my computer on this morning and trashed a number of posts I had written; I will probably use them again later and I want to make sure that I have all of the poetry saved in Word file as well. I changed the theme, and the header image. I created two new categories, which you can find in the menu section on the top right corner of the blog, and decided on what I wanted to do differently.

First, I am hoping to write more about mental illness and love, my two new categories. I will try to be more consistent in writing the blog as well. I love writing – poetry, prose poetry, prose, essays… anything that sparks the candles in my brain, but if you don’t ever write, you can’t get better at it. It’s just like drawing and painting… if you never do it, there’s no chance you’ll ever get anything out of it. So yes, I am going to try and make sure I write every week and post a painting or drawing with each piece too. I have been telling myself I would do it for months on end now… I am just a little tired of telling myself I’ll do things… I think I’ve said that in another post, but who knows? I may succeed this time. So wish me luck and perseverance 🤒

Three months have passed since I last wrote a post. This is not the first time it has happened – I have to admit I am not entirely sure why. Is it writer’s block? Is it me being so caught up in everyday life that I don’t take time to write? Or it is the old feeling of worthlessness coming back to haunt me and make me want to almost give up everything?

And I did almost give up, though I didn’t let anyone know the feeling was growing inside me – give up my dissertation, my writing, my painting, my caring for anything and anyone. I almost gave up living altogether. I had forgotten the feeling – like a hand blinding you, choking you, silencing and stifling; so when it crept back, I was overwhelmed. How could I possibly deal? All I wanted was to disappear – to become invisible and to stop being a burden for everyone. And I didn’t tell. I didn’t tell because it would have been bothersome to others, wouldn’t it? I was so ashamed of myself. The blame kept pounding my head relentlessly. I could hear them, and I could see them and they were everywhere. The voices, and the eyes and the hands. I could not tell. This is crazy.

Instead, I focused on my family, my beautiful, wonderful girlfriend and my friends. I concentrated my thoughts on the love I could give and that I kept being given. On the luck I had to be working in a field that makes me feel passionate and stimulated. On all the things that I can do and all that I have accomplished. I faced myself. I looked my fears in the eyes and loosened their grip so my throat would not feel as constricted and my heart as tight.

I painted a mental picture of my dreams come true – a life with the person I love, painting or writing while she was playing the guitar and singing. I saw us working or reading or travelling. I heard us laugh. I took a deep breath and invited these heart-warming thoughts to settle; their soothing warmth scared away the numbness and negative doubts. Now, I am sitting down at the desk writing and my heart is full of love, gratefulness and passion and all I wish is for these feelings to shine on through.